What are you Doing the Rest of your Life?

**jasaco** · 07-16-2016, 09:37 AM

Can't get this song out of my head lately. Would like to find sheet music and/or tab for a solo guitar arrangement. I know Rich Severson has one but I'm not that fond of his arrangement (though there are some nice subs in it). Anyone know of another? Ideally one I could also hear first by mp3 or video before committing the time to work through it on my axe.

Thanks.

**Drumbler** · 07-16-2016, 12:23 PM

It's interesting how a song will get into your head.

This happened to me a few weeks ago with the Rick Springfield song "Jessie's Girl" after I watched him play it on TV.

A catchy tune.

**mr. beaumont** · 07-16-2016, 12:28 PM

Great song. I do it in the (original?) Key of Am as a solo piece, I take the bridge down an octave from where I do the "A."

Jasaco, I don't think I'd have time to write anything out, but I cold do a video and talk through it, if you'd like.

**Marty Grass** · 07-16-2016, 12:37 PM

I would love to see that video!

**targuit** · 07-16-2016, 01:09 PM

Jasaco - What key would you like?

I have a Sibelius library of transcriptions I create as a two staff thing - melody and (guitar) accompaniment written out as notion - that include that lovely song. If you like, I could likely scan the printed sheet music and send it to you as an e-mail attachment.

I actually have done home recordings of What Are You Doing The Rest of Your Life (title is too damned long) of that song which I could put up on Youtube as an audio video. Or I could record it this afternoon. I like to sing, but if you prefer a chord melody style version I can put that up. Or maybe both.

If you tell me your key preference, I can put that up. Not saying I'm Johnny Smith, but it's quite recognizable.

I tend to play it in the key of Am as well, but transposing is not a problem. Are you talking about playing it with your pedal steel guitar or another guitar?

**mr. beaumont** · 07-16-2016, 01:39 PM

Originally Posted by Marty Grass

I would love to see that video!

Threw a little something together....Going by memory here, which...welll...needs some work, maybe

This is bare bones simple, feel free to sub and embellish.

Oh, and the blood curdling scream about 1:30 is someone else in the neighborhood's kid. Go figure.

**targuit** · 07-16-2016, 02:12 PM

**targuit** · 07-16-2016, 04:42 PM

Right on the money, Jeff!

The scream was likely a heavy metal fan....

**Flat** · 07-16-2016, 04:52 PM

You da' man, Mr. B.! That was awesome, and I ain't even the OP.

**jasaco** · 07-16-2016, 05:09 PM

You guys are great. If I'd known y'all would be so helpful with questions like this, I would have asked many more sooner! LOL!

Jeff, that sounds great; thank you so much for doing it and for talking through it as you played it. That's my learning style so that was delightful. Thank you.

And, Targuit, I would love to hear your arrangement of it too (and Am would be perfect). Between yours, Jeff's, Joe Pass's and Rich Severson's, I'm sure I could cobble together my own arrangement that would be entirely my own fault.

Targuit, I would indeed prefer a chord-melody version, rather than vocal. I'll probably work it up first on guitar and then, if I have the time and still can't get the song out of my head, I might try to translate it to pedal steel. I think it would be killer on steel in the right hands (now, where do I go find those right hands?) And if you'd like to scan the Sibelius transcription for me, that would be de'lovely too.

Thanks again, guys. I owe ya one. (Free first pedal steel lesson?)

jasaco

**targuit** · 07-16-2016, 06:18 PM

Coming up. I need some time tonight to review the transcription and how to scan it so I can attach it. But it's all done, so just the busy work. In Am/A.

It's kind of weird. I was looking for the Johnny Smith live recording of the song and I cannot yet produce it. I'd like to hear it again with his touch. EDIT - found that Johnny Smith video - not great sound quality (1984) live concert.

I was reviewing Mathis' version in Bb which I like as a key when I got chased off youtube for hogging too much bandwidth apparently according to my son.

**jasaco** · 07-16-2016, 10:54 PM

Oh, I almost forgot to mention. If anyone has any good ideas for some counterpoint on the opening line, that's what I'd like to play (over the lyrics "What are you doing the", I hear an ascending/descending counterpoint line, one per syllable).

Thanks.

jasaco

**mr. beaumont** · 07-16-2016, 11:20 PM

Oh, definitely I can hear that. Can't grab a guitar now, sleeping in a tent with my 4 year old. Yes, in the back yard. He's out like a light, I'm drinking an imperial IPA.

My gut says start by trying the melody in reverse, tweak from there. I'll try it out in the morning.

**mr. beaumont** · 07-17-2016, 09:26 AM

Just tried it. Fun stuff, sits real easy on guitar...

So, C D E F G# A

Gets paired with a descending

A G# F E D C

I'm no Bach, but I dig it.

**jasaco** · 07-17-2016, 11:42 AM

Thanks for that, Jeff. I just played around with it, with the countermelody below the melody line, but I kinda like the lower line to go chromatically down like this; see what you think:

A G# G F# F E

It put a momentary discord at the F# against the F natural in the melody (on the syllable "do-") but it resolves quickly (and nicely) enough to accept it.

What do you think?

Thanks for exploring this with me.

jasaco

**mr. beaumont** · 07-17-2016, 12:00 PM

Hmm, I like the first three notes...the F/F# doesn't bug me, but I find the last two notests just ok...actually, I think it's just the E/A that sounds a little boring to me. EspecI ally after the juicy stuff before.

I'm gonna spend some more time with it today. This is fun.

**mr. beaumont** · 07-17-2016, 12:06 PM

Oooh, try A G# D C# C B on the bottom...

**targuit** · 07-17-2016, 01:10 PM

Jim -

Just to let you know to check your personal e-mail. I sent one along with three pages of sheet music attachments for the transcription of What the hell are you doing....

I hope everything went through. Let me know, as I had to finish the transcription which I had left initially incomplete as to the last several measures. Sibelius can be annoying sometimes. I had just finished and then realized that somehow I had erased the bar lines delineating the measures in the melody staff. No idea how I did it and spent twenty minutes perusing the manual to figure out how to get them back in vain. I have no idea why anyone would want to remove them in the first place. In any case I ended up printing them up and drawing in the measure lines by hand. Geesh....

**jasaco** · 07-17-2016, 02:29 PM

Thanks, Jay. Received it and very kind of you. I presume the chord-melody would emerge from playing both the top and bottom lines simultaneously; is the arrangement voiced so that that is always physically possible? Also, any chance you have recorded this arrangement so I could hear it? I'm not a fast reader, yet, so it would be a long while before I could pick through this and hearing it would give me the inspiration to keep going.

Again, many thanks.

jasaco

**targuit** · 07-17-2016, 02:47 PM

Glad the mail went through.

Yes, the transcription has two staves - melody and guitar accompaniment. Generally I create these for two purposes - rehearsal midi wave files and to print up sheet music for recording at home. I essentially improvise for recording using the sheet music as a 'roadmap' for verses, choruses, lyrics, song structure. To create a complete chord melody, one must incorporate the top melody staff into the bottom "guitar" accompaniment. But the lower guitar solo staff is voiced to incorporate the melody explicitly or implicitly. Which is to say that the melody line mentally transposed up an octave gives you a suggestion as to fret position or at least narrows the possibilities. I tend these days to voice the melody as much as possible on the second B string and third G string. The third and seventh of the chords or their interval in the melody help to determine voicings obviously, along with the color notes like ninths, elevenths, and thirteenths. But I hear all that so I don't always explicitly write it in, preferring to keep the accompaniment relatively straight forward. These are intended as the core info with harmonic suggestions - a 'sophisticated' lead sheet. The guitar accompaniment is always voiced to suggest fret position and logical transitions in terms of good voicing. As a singer, I like to have a separate melody line with the lyrics.

**jasaco** · 07-17-2016, 02:54 PM

Originally Posted by mr. beaumont

Oooh, try A G# D C# C B on the bottom...

I'm not keen on the low D against the high E... too open and the D feels like too big a jump in the voice-leading from the G#.

I think I'm coming round to counterpoint just on the A G# G F# , followed by a Fdim (xx3434) and then just hit the A melody note alone on the 1st string, followed by the Am9 chord.

By the way, I'm really liking the EbMaj7 that Joe Pass uses just before the lyric, "I have only one request..."

Jay, since you make this up for midi rehearsal files, any way you can send me a midi file of it playing?

**mr. beaumont** · 07-17-2016, 03:08 PM

Originally Posted by jasaco

I'm not keen on the low D against the high E... too open and the D feels like too big a jump in the voice-leading from the G#.

I think I'm coming round to counterpoint just on the A G# G F# , followed by a Fdim (xx3434) and then just hit the A melody note alone on the 1st string, followed by the Am9 chord.

By the way, I'm really liking the EbMaj7 that Joe Pass uses just before the lyric, "I have only one request..."

Jay, since you make this up for midi rehearsal files, any way you can send me a midi file of it playing?

ah, I would have been more specific...

im jumping back up to the D, not going lower.

**targuit** · 07-17-2016, 03:17 PM

I may try to record a version this afternoon, as the house is relatively quiet. I've always liked this song, both the sentiment and the musical composition. I enjoy Johnny Mathis' version, Barbara Streisand, Sarah Vaugh. Sinatra's is curious.

Jeff played a nice version.

Jim - here we get into the weeds of Sibelius. If you have Scorch, I could exchange midi files. I know that is technically possible with my old legacy G7 edition. On the other hand, I have never done that. Probably not hard. But you have to have Scorch. Or at least that was the way it worked when I first bought the software many years ago.

But if I record something, I have a few options. I could record with my Tascam DR-05 recorder a rendition of the transcription midi files channeled through my cheapo Yamaha keyboard synth. Thus I could assign a string patch for the vocal and allow the guitar accompaniment that I played to be voiced as a nylon string guitar. Or, I could sing over said midi files and record that as a "live" performance over the transcription midi files via the Tascam mp3 files for upload to YouTube. Or, I could record a CM version with a Yamaha classical guitar via MXL 990 LD mic into my Korg D1200 digital standalone recorder (not computer DAW). Or a vocal plus guitar accompaniment version. Vox takes the melody. I realize how comical this paragraph reads but those are some of the choices. Amusingly I note that I have not graduated to using my Android phone like Jeff is so capable of doing. My bad, of course